Whispers
by AngelofElements
Summary: Shiori Minamino tries to cope with the death of her son. Rated for character death and violence.


Disclaimer: I do not own YYH nor any of the characters and/or related items.

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Shiori Minamino walked down the street, her head bowed. She couldn't stand looking up at the crowds, at the young teens that were just getting out of school. They all reminded her of Shuichi. That was something she wasn't able to handle, not right now. She wasn't sure if she would ever be able to look at a group of happy teenagers again.

It had all come as a shock to her. She was very accustomed to Shuichi leaving on mysterious trips, but he had always come back safe and sound. He thought that she didn't notice the new cuts that sometimes appeared here and there, but he couldn't fool her.

However, that's all it ever was. He never came back with anything more than a few scratches that were most likely from a cat or something. Nothing that would make her worry. Nothing that she thought would kill him.

She could still see the faces of his friends when they told her. The orange-haired one and the tall one with brown eyes, she believed their names were Kuwabara and Yusuke, had come to her house in the middle of the day looking quite beat up. The short one, she hazily recalled Shuichi introducing him as Hiei, was standing in the background, almost completely in shadows. Each of them looked mournful. It really hadn't been their condition as more their disposition that had scared her.

"Are you alright? What happened?" She had scanned the surrounding area. "Where's Shuichi?"

Yusuke had bowed his head. "I-I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"There was...an accident. And I'm afraid that Shuichi is dead."

Those words. Those grim words. "Shuichi is dead."

They haunted her. Every single moment of every single day those words echoed through her head. "Shuichi is dead." She couldn't seem to shake them off. She had tried to distract herself, if only for awhile.

Nothing worked. Everything reminded her of her son, from reading to gardening to a simple walk in the park. Every time she heard them she would feel an icy knife run though her heart. "Shuichi is dead."

Shiori was ripped out of her memories by a brush against her arm. Her mind vaguely registered that she had bumped into some one and had to apologize. She turned and opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't. Those eyes. Those green eyes. They were so much like Shuichi's. Not like her own brown ones, but unique and beautiful. The man she had bumped into looked nothing like him, but she took no notice of what the rest of him looked like. She only saw his eyes. Tears sprung up from hidden places.

Without thinking she turned and ran in the opposite direction. Finally, she reached her home. She burst into the front hall and slammed the door behind her. After that, she sank to the floor in a flurry of sobs.

"Shuichi is dead." Why? Why was he dead? What did he ever do that gave some one the right to take his life away so early? The icy knife kept going deeper and deeper, never stopping.

"No one lives forever." said a tiny voice in the back of her head.

"He shouldn't have died!" she screamed out into the empty space. The voice was silent. The only sounds were her sobs and her tears splashing onto the floor.

"Shuichi." she whispered. "Why?"

Sunset found her walking towards the graveyard where her Shuichi was buried. It really wasn't much of a sunset. Clouds had obscured the sun long ago, and rain had started to fall. It didn't bother Shiori. She barely noticed the water splashing on her head.

With single-mindedness she made her way to her son's grave. She knelt by it and allowed her tears to mingle with the rain that was already streaming down

her face.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember his face. That was easy enough, she looked at pictures of him all the time. His voice was harder, much harder. It was almost impossible to recall his laugh. But she would always have his face. People said that she

shouldn't torture herself like that, but she was terrified of forgetting. It was worth the pain to be able to remember her son. A choked sob made its way out of her mouth.

"Are you alright, Mother?" She heard her son's voice behind her. Quickly she turned, and saw nothing. Was she going crazy?

"Mother, why are you crying?" There he was! Standing infront of her, smiling.

"Shuichi?"

"Yes Mother?"

Yes! This was her son! He had come back, he was right here infront of her, she could see him! It didn't matter that he was blurred, that was probably just the rain.

She lept to her feat and ran towards him. "Shuichi!" He held out his arms to her, still smiling. She ran into them, ready to embrace her son. A knife was shoved through her heart. She froze and looked up in confusion. Instead of her son there was a horrid

looking thing with blue skin and yellow horns. It chuckled and shoved her to the ground.

"Shuichi." She whispered her son's name and cried for him one last time. Then she died. The demon infront of her laughed mockingly. He was cut off by a katana slicing off his head.

"Pathetic scum." said a cold voice. Red eyes surveyed the scene before them. Something like pity welled up in Hiei's mind. "She didn't deserve to die

like this." he muttered to himself.

Instead of picking her up, he incinerated the demon's body then walked over to the little hut that he knew had a human in it.

0-0-0-0-0

Though the police investigated the murder of Shiori Minamino's murder, they never found anything. All they knew was that there were ashes by her body, and that a mysterious man in black had tipped the warden off about what had happened. She was buried beside Shuichi several days later. Loving mother and devoted son were finally united in the world of the dead.

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A/N: I feel it necessary to point out that I have nothing against Kurama or his mother. This is just an idea that I've been toying with and decided to write down.

Additional Note: Story posted by ThePioden, who appologizes for any screwed up formatting and run-togther words. Pioden's e-mail service corrupted the original paragraph breaks and overall story structure, and Quick Edit isn't helping much.


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